Coffee in Germany

When I visited Berlin earlier this year I was lucky enough to get a tip from a barista at The Barn about Chapter One, a new cafe that had only been open for a couple of weeks. When I visited it was clear they were still setting up shop, but the quality of their coffee was already top notch. That has a lot to do with the fact one of the owners is Nora Šmahelová, a Czech expat who is a WBC judge and a former German Barista Champion.

In most places in Europe “coffee” and “espresso” are synonymous, but I was surprised to find Chapter One’s focus is filter coffees. …

Over the last decade several cities have emerged as coffee destinations: London, New York, San Francisco, Melbourne, and Oslo immediately come to mind. These trendsetting cities are home to acclaimed roasters and attract a steady flow of globetrotting baristas on coffee pilgrimages. But over in the Eurozone a wave of new coffee shops have been popping up around Berlin, and one cafe in particular, The Barn, is a big reason why your next cafe crawl should be in Germany’s capital.